The Fire Dragon

‘I will, my lord,’ Riddmar said. ‘Owaen’s teaching me swordcraft, anyway. We could have a lesson.’

‘Good idea,’ Owaen said. ‘Maddo, come on.’

The silver daggers left, taking the boy with them. Once the door had shut behind them, Oggyn crumpled into a chair and covered his white face with both hands. ‘If he had let little Olaen live,’ he said into his palms, ‘the wars would never have ended.’

‘I know that as well as you do,’ Nevyn said.

With a groan Oggyn lowered his hands and stared at the floor. Nevyn itched to point out that Oggyn should have talked the prince round to a legal execution rather than poisoning the lad, but he held his tongue. He had chosen to keep silence at the time. Breaking it now would be unbearably self-righteous.

‘We’d best get back to the great hall,’ Nevyn said. ‘We both have our duties to attend to.’

In her sunny chamber, Lilli was sitting at her table and studying the dweomer book when the prince strode in. He slammed the door, then stood leaning against it with his hands behind his back. He’d set his mouth tight, and his eyes had turned as cold as storm clouds. Lilli shut the book and rose to curtsey to him.

‘What troubles your heart, my prince?’

‘Your cursed cousin, Braemys.’ Maryn paused, looking her over with cold eyes. ‘Your betrothed.’

‘He’s no longer my betrothed.’

‘He was once. What I wonder is if he ever claimed his rights.’

‘Never! I never bedded him.’

‘Unlike –’ Maryn broke the saying off.

His eyes had turned cold as steel in winter. Involuntarily Lilli took a step back. He neither moved nor spoke, merely studied her face as if he would flay it to see the soul beneath.

‘Were you happy when they betrothed you?’ Maryn said at last.

‘He was better than the other choice my uncles gave me, was all. Uncle Tibryn wanted to marry me off to Lord Nantyn.’

At that Maryn relaxed. ‘If I were a lass,’ he said, ‘I’d marry a kitchen lad before I’d marry Nantyn.’

‘And so would I have.’

‘No doubt Braemys looked like a prince by comparison.’ Maryn pried himself off the door and walked over to her. ‘But he’s refusing my offer of fealty.’

‘I was rather afraid he would.’

‘Me, too. Of course.’

Maryn hesitated, considering her, then put his hands either side of her face. ‘Do you love me, Lilli?’

‘I do.’

‘With all your heart?’

‘Of course.’

Maryn bent his head and kissed her. Lilli slipped her arms around his neck and let him take another. When they were together, it seemed to her that she’d never loved anyone or anything as much as she loved her prince.

‘Can you stay for a while?’ she whispered. ‘Please?’

‘I shouldn’t. I meant to ask you about Braemys, is all. Ye gods, I feel half-mad at times, when I think of you.’

For a moment she nearly wept, simply because he was leaving, but he bent his head and kissed her.

‘I’ll return in the evening, my lady,’ he whispered. ‘Hold me in your heart till then.’

Before Lilli could speak he turned and ran out of the room. The door slammed so hard behind him that it trembled. Despite the spring sun pouring in the window, she felt cold. It’s like I’m half-mad too, she thought. All at once she no longer wanted to be alone.

Lilli left her chamber and headed for the kitchen hut out back of the broch complex. Since she was terrified of meeting Bellyra face to face, she’d taken to begging her meals from the cook at odd moments of the day, but the only way out of the central broch lay through the great hall. Lilli paused on the spiral stairs, saw no sign of Bellyra, then crept down, keeping to the shadows near the wall. When she reached the last step, Degwa trotted up, so preoccupied that she nearly ran into Lilli. On the serving woman’s dress gleamed a silver brooch, set with glass.

‘Pardon,’ Degwa said briskly.

‘Granted,’ Lilli said. ‘How fares the princess?’

Degwa looked elsewhere and flounced off without saying a word more. Lilli choked back tears and rushed outside. She was hoping to find Nevyn in his chamber, but just as she reached the side broch she met him coming out, dressed in his best grey brigga and a clean shirt.

‘What’s so wrong?’ Nevyn said. ‘You look ill.’

‘I feel ill,’ Lilli said. ‘But not from my wretched lungs, my lord. It was only a woman’s matter. I don’t want to keep you. I can see you’re off on some important business or suchlike.’

‘I just came back from a visit to the temple of Bel, if you mean these fancy clothes. Now – what’s so wrong?’

‘It’s Degwa. She just snubbed me in the great hall, but that’s not the worst of it. Have you noticed the brooch she’s wearing today?’

‘I did at that.’ Nevyn looked puzzled. ‘What of it?’

‘It belonged to my mother.’

Nevyn pursed his lips as if he were going to whistle.

‘Someone must have looted it when the siege ended,’ Lilli went on. ‘And then given it to Decci.’

‘I’ll wager I know who it was,’ Nevyn said. ‘Councillor Oggyn kept a number of your mother’s things. He returned the dweomer book to me, but no doubt he kept whatever else he looted. Do you want the brooch back?’

‘I don’t, but do you think it might be cursed or suchlike?’

‘It might, at that. It’s a nasty thing to speak ill of the dead, but I fear me your mother brings out the worst in me. There are certain workings that can charge an ordinary thing as if it were a talisman. That blasted curse tablet is just such a thing, as no doubt you realize. Your mother might well have set a weaker spell on her jewellery to do harm to any who might steal it.’

‘I see. But I don’t dare ask Decci for it.’

‘Of course not. Leave it to me, but I can’t do it immediately. I’m going to attend upon the prince for a brief while. We’ll be writing out the formal declaration of the summer’s fighting. Tomorrow at dawn the messengers go out to announce the muster.’

‘I see.’ For a moment Lilli felt like vomiting out of simple terror. ‘Oh ye gods, I hope this summer sees the end to it.’

‘So do I.’ Nevyn sighed with a toss of his head. ‘So do I.’